Thursday, October 08, 2015

Automation Technologies Pty Ltd

The Basics of Business Process Automation

Not sure what a Business Process is?

To understand why you would want to automate Business Processes, it is useful to understand what the components of a Business Process are. Business Processes are commonly considered as a collection of related tasks and activities, that either provide a product or service to a client, or contribute to the overall management of the company.

This methodology applies to most industries, including manufacturing, Health, IT and business services; each with unique business rules governing how tasks are performed or dictating expected outcomes. The methods of automating processes differs greatly between industries and may include the use of industrial robots for automating manufacturing tasks or using software (Enterprise Resource Planning ERP, Customer Relationship Management CRM, etc.) for automating information management.

The 3 Business Process Components

Regardless of the industry, a clearly defined Business process will have three main components:

Inputs - Requests, Triggers, Business Requirements

Structured and sequenced Tasks, Business Activities or Sub-Business Processes

Output - a product, service or business goal

The workflow of structured tasks & business activities that produce an output will either consist of manual tasks, requiring a person to do the work, or tasks which can be automated and completed by a computer or robot. Many tasks in daily business activities that involve data processing and working with electronic information can be easily automated. An example would be to include automatic email notifications when digital documents have been uploaded to an EDRMS and require review by management.

The Benefits of Automation

Automating tasks provides a number of benefits to companies in the form of improved quality, reduced costs and standardising of company operations.

Two of the immediate benefits you will notice from automating business workflow are:

1. Improved Communication - clear chains of communication

Automating workflow communication is a simple place to start for tasks that do not require manual interaction. For example, these may include automatic notifications once a supplier has submitted an invoice into your system, or a notification to accounts payable that the invoice has been approved by management.

Simple automated notifications using set templates standardise communication and avoid the time required by employees to send manual communications. Task reminders and automatic escalations are another way to make sure work tasks are being completed. While you can’t guarantee an employee will do the work, you can be safe knowing an automated system will continue to remind them until it’s done.

2. Quality and Efficiency - reduce manual errors

Automating tasks has been a common way to achieve higher quality through the avoidance of human error. A higher quality operation will increase efficiency as less defects or errors need to be repaired, providing additional time & cost benefits.

Manufacturing industries have implemented automated systems through use of robotics for many years to achieve increased quality. Automated quality systems are a key factor that allows manufacturers to remain cost effective and competitive in the modern economy. You can also apply this methodology to modern day-to-day business activities to achieve similar improvements in quality management, efficiency and cost effectiveness.

The Importance of Monitoring & Optimising

The subject of Business Process Optimisation and Business Process Management can become a long and complex task. While it is ideal to get your processes structured correctly first time around, this will often not be the case, and continual monitoring of workflow will assist in improved performance.

It is important to continually monitor business process systems to identify bottlenecks, redundant tasks or any other issues with implemented business processes.

Once issues have been identified, you can implement strategies to improve workflow performance like increasing resources to avoid bottlenecks and removing redundant tasks from your automated system.

Where to begin?

To improve quality, be cost effective and remain competitive, business needs to look towards automation. With recent advances in Cloud-Computing and web-based business tools, automating your business has never been more accessible.

To gain these benefits for your company you should start by planning and analysing your current company operations.

1. Identify Products, Services or management requirements that you provide or need.

Do these items have several inputs and tasks? What are they?

2. Analyse the workflow, what can be automated or completed electronically?